HEATH – Richard Cordray, the Democratic candidate for governor, emphasized the need for cooperation between levels of government during a brief visit Tuesday to the MISTRAS Group's lab and field office in Heath.

The Heath-Newark Licking County Port Authority, which manages the Central Ohio Aerospace and Technology Center campus, invited both Cordray and Republican gubernatorial candidate Mike DeWine to visit the campus, as it did earlier this year for Congressional candidates Troy Balderson and Danny O'Connor.

Rick Platt, executive director of the Port Authority, said DeWine had not yet made a commitment to visit the campus before the election, but both of the candidates for governor have visited COATC previously.

MISTRAS general manager Mike Jones gave the candidate a tour of the 60,000 square foot facility, built three years ago on James Parkway. Jones shared the focus of their talk.

"His interest was in partnering with local government and sharing resources," Jones said. "That was a big topic of discussion."

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The MISTRAS Group building at 1480 James Parkway, at the Central Ohio Aerospace and Technology Center, in Heath.(Photo: Kent Mallett/The Advocate)

Cordray said he was impressed with MISTRAS, which has 38 employees and performs non-destructive testing of products for other companies, including Boeing, Kaiser Aluminum, Owens Corning and Space X.

"I see people with great skills doing great work," Cordray said. "Things are sent in from all over the country and the world to test the accuracy and precision."

Ten years ago, when Cordray was state treasurer, he visited Park National Bank in downtown Newark to advise local officials on responding to the growing foreclosure crisis during The Great Recession.

"We finally managed to get through most of that," Cordray said Tuesday. "It was a good example of how state and local government can work together. It was not something in anybody's job description."

Cordray served as Ohio's attorney general, solicitor general, and treasurer, before President Barack Obama appointed him the nation's first Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, where he remained from 2012 to 2017.

Asked about state cutbacks to the Local Government Fund, Cordray avoided putting the blame on Republican Gov. John Kasich.

"I fault the legislature," Cordray said. "They played a cynical game, making the state government look good at the expense of local government. The local government, that's where the rubber meets the road."

Cordray said he won't let local governments endure the same fate if he becomes governor, instead pushing for funds for local governments.

"We'll insist on that happening, and I'll battle with the state legislature to make sure of it," Cordray said.

The Democrat responded to DeWine's televised campaign commercials attacking Cordray for not testing 12,000 rape kits while he was Ohio Attorney General. DeWine defeated Cordray in 2010, and has been the state's attorney general since January 2011.

"He knows that issue came up five months before I left the AG's office and we immediately jumped on it," Cordray said. "We put in protocols on testing rape kits. It took him seven years to work off that backlog. We weren't holding onto them and not testing the rape kits. It's a bogus charge. The FOP knows us both well and endorsed me."

The visit was the first from a political candidate to MISTRAS, but not the last, Jones said.

"Many more to come," Jones said. "It gets our name out there in public and the defense market."

MISTRAS outgrew a small facility in Columbus and moved in the mid-1990s to Heath, leasing space from Kaiser Aluminum, one of its leading customers. The company continued to grow and moved into its new home in 2016. There is space to double its size, if necessary, Jones said.

The company chose the Heath site because the location is easily accessible from Interstate 70 and Ohio 79, Jones said.

"It's logistically perfect and easy for trucks to get in here," Jones said.